We’ve had a complicated relationship. I’ve loved you, I’ve hated you. I’ve run to you, I’ve fled from you. And then I’ve repeated these steps over and over until I couldn’t tell if I ever loved you at all. The first time I went to New York I was 4. We went to visit family who lived back there (sidenote: I always refer to the East Coast as “back there” or “back east” because it’s older than California). What I remember most vividly about that first trip is going to the Metropolitan Museum for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only two or three hours. It was interesting for about the first 20 minutes, while my sister and I pretended to be in that book where the kids get stuck in the museum (From The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler). Needless to say I didn’t love New York after that trip. I’m in New York right now working on a glamourous Lake House with Emily, so the city and my relationship with it has been on my brain.

As you remember I grew up here, in this very house, under this very waterfall.

This is what I saw when I looked out the window.

Many people who grow up in small towns like I did can’t wait to leave. When I was in high school, I would read the Andy Warhol Diaries and stare out the window, fantasizing about my future life in New York. But then I ended up going to college in another idyllic, yet rural place:

So naturally, after a whole lifetime of being trapped in gorgeous places, I decided to move to New York. This is the first picture of me ever posted to Facebook. We are at some club called Crobar, which is closed now but used to be totally cool or whatever.

Meeting amazing people (this is Amber Martin, who does AMAZING performance art and hilarious Reba impersonations).

So that’s what I love, among many other things, about this glamorous and disgusting city. Even though it’s totally humid and lots of people here talk like they are screaming across the room even when they are right in front of your face, New York is still a rad place. That being said, I’m always happy to come back home to Los Angeles. Because home is where the heart is. And there’s a heart in this picture. And it’s at LAX. So technically that’s where the heart is.